From SWJ News Roundup today, well worth the read if you're interested in China.

http://qz.com/415649/china-is-buildi...re-in-history/

China is building the most extensive global commercial-military empire in history

Yet these profiles of an allegedly grasping and treacherous China tend to consider its ambitions in disconnected pieces. What these pieces add up to is a whole latticework of infrastructure materializing around the world. Combined with the ambitious activities of Chinese companies, they are quickly growing into history’s most extensive global commercial empire.